#animorphs gedds

[kooldewd123]

Alright I've got some THOUGHTS about the Iskoort and how they relate to Yeerk ecology that I've been dying to get out but I wanted to wait until I reached book 26 in case there was some detail I was forgetting. So obviously, the big twist with these guys is they they're actually some offshoot of the Yeerks who found a way to evolve past the need for parasitism by creating an artificial species to inhabit. The part that's been really sticking out in my mind as I reread the series, however, is that this isn't actually the first time a concept like this has been brought up. Let's take a look at Guide's description of the Iskoort:

Since we formed our symbiotes, the combination Isk and Yoort, we have been as we are now. ... The Isk cannot live without the Yoort. And to ensure this symbiosis would be real, the Yoort, too, were modified. Now Yoort cannot live without Isk and Isk cannot live without Yoort. They are one creature with two parts. - Guide, #26: The Attack

This description sounded familiar to me when I read it for some reason. That's when I realized: It's weirdly similar to the way that Seerow describes the relationship between the Yeerks and the Gedds:

[The Yeerks] have no history of harming intelligent life-forms. The Gedds are barely conscious in their natural state. It's not as if they were stealing the bodies of truly sentient creatures. They and the Gedds are symbiotic. - Seerow, The Hork-Bajir Chronicles.

The Iskoort aren't a symbol of what the Yeerks might become become in the future - they're what the Yeerks already were before the Andalites found them. The Yeerks, within their native habitat, aren't parasites, but rather mutualistic partners to the Gedds. The Gedds' bodies give the Yeerks new senses and enhanced motility, while the Yeerks' capabilities for higher thinking grant the Gedds all the benefits that come with it, such as greater survival skills and the framework of civilization. Yeerk benefits from Gedd, and Gedd benefits from Yeerk. It's not hard to imagine that over many generations, as the Yeerk/Gedd relationship grew deeper, we could have seen something strikingly similar to the Iskoort evolve.

But then the Andalites came.

The Yeerks specifically evolved to infest the barely-sentient Gedds, but it turns out that much of sentient life in the galaxy mirrors Gedd anatomy closely enough to also be viable hosts for Yeerks. Like I said before, the Yeerks didn't necessarily evolve as parasites, but they became so opportunistically when unleashed upon unsuspecting habitats that had never had any reason to evolve defenses against such a threat. You know what we call something like that in real-world ecology? An invasive species. And I just love that. Animorphs is a series with a strong, clear environmentalist message. Invasive species are some of the closest examples we have to actual villains in nature, so creating villains that reflect them is a brilliant idea. And with this perspective in mind, even more parallels start to pop up! Real-world invasive species often begin spreading as stowaways on settler ships, and the Yeerks began spreading using Andalite advance ships. Invasive species can cause ecosystem collapse by out-competing native species, and the Yeerks intentionally destroy the ecosystems of worlds they've conquered. My biology brain has been latching on to this idea ever since I read that passage from Seerow. It's such an interesting shift in the way to analyze the Yeerks' actions.

[yalikejazz9]

Contrary to popular belief, Gedds actually have very gentle hands.

This is so they can help their little slug friends when they need a little dip in their little pools.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Do you know if Gedds are ever described, specifically on the Yeerk homeworld, to have the one too-short limb? I'm wondering if when the Yeerks were introduced to space travel and took a population of host Gedds with them, they didn't prepare enough for the effects of inbreeding. (though that also depends on Gedd reproduction/maturity rate. how long would they have to have been in a limited population to accumulate mutations. were yeerks trying to do gedd eugenics even before Seerow.)

We don't ever see the yeerk home world in canon — the closest we come is a hologram in Hork-Bajir Chronicles and Esplin 9466's attempt to recreate it from memory in Andalite Chronicles. So I feel like the gedd eugenics read is totally supported by canon, as is the interpretation that the yeerks somehow help "course correct" gedds while inside their brains.

[church-of-crayak]

got really into the idea of miku being an andalite text-to-thoughtspeak software mascot!! here is a deeply y2k andalite hatsune miku

[milquetoast-zeitgeist]

Interesting take.

So the yeerks, at a basic level, are motivated to infest other species in order to gain access to better senses and have mobility outside the yeerk pools. They're parasites and that's how they work.

Now, it's wrong for them to enslave species such as humans, hork-bajir, andalites, taxxons, etc.

But I also think it would be wrong to consider morphing technology as a solution (that is, having yeerks go permanent morph as a different species to have senses and mobility). That would essentially be telling yeerks to voluntarily have their species go extinct because it sucks, and that's questionable to say the least.

So my question is, are there any species on Earth that would be suitable as an alternative yeerk host? Like is there any species that the able-to-talk-to-each-other species would be cool with yeerks generally infesting? The animal would have to be one with a large enough brain for the yeerk to live, and there would have to be lots of them/potential for lots of them, and also able to communicate with the other talk-to-each-other species in some way.

Would, like...racoons work for this? Would we be cool with racoons being controlled by intelligent brain slugs? Are racoons big enough? As for communication I think racoons have hands/arms that are capable of sign language so that's just an ordinary translation issue.

[wandringaesthetic]

Some Animorphs thoughts, and some general violence in media thoughts:

So the majority of yeerks the Animorphs have to face, have innocent slaves as their hosts. So, taking Animorphs as a metaphor for IRL wars, KAA is communicating that many people fighting in a war simply aren't there by choice and also that collateral damage in war almost inevitably hits some unambiguously innocent people.

BUT ON TOP OF THAT

You have the yeerks, who have very limited senses and mobility in their unhosted state. There's a species on their home planet they can parasite into, but their capabilities are not so great either, and they're not very numerous. (Though, as I'm writing this, I wonder if the Yeerk distaste against Gedd hosts is more of a social thing cuz it signals low status or if this is maybe even the result of propaganda) If they want to have full sensory experiences and if they want to go to the stars, they're going to have to enslave other races.

(or..... Do something more complex, like some bio-engineering, but that's going on a tangent)

Early in the books, the yeerks are perceived as unnuanced evil. From at least #19, you get their perspective, which imo doesn't make them justified, but it does make them understandable. If they want to see and hear and run and feel the wind on their face, if they want that for the majority of their peers.... Let's find a low tech alien species with a central nervous system and enslave all of them. Add to those desires, pressure from your imperial/extreme meritocracy government where the "merit" is determined by people who are empire-pilled....

Understandable.

AND THEN YOU ALSO GET VOLUNTARY HOSTS

The books don't really elaborate on this aspect much, because I think it got into some territory even KAA was uncomfortable with tackling for juvenile readers.

Some of these are "voluntary" in the sense Tobias was in MM4, i.e., he didn't really understand what he was getting into and was like "oh God no" and then it was too late.

For the others.... You gotta ask yourself why a person would choose to give their lives over to a brain slug, and my answers for that are various situations of desperation: addiction, severe mental illness, severe poverty etc. But I think a few were probably promised, well, something like illuminati membership, and found even what they actually got to be acceptable. I make none of my own decisions and am a passenger in my body, but I *am* living in wealth and comfort!

The Animorphs view these people as traitors to humanity and basically incomprehensibly evil, and there's SOME of that happening imo, but I think mostly not. I think, maybe if you are living on the street and you get a brain slug but you are no longer living on the street some would see this as acceptable terms.

So anyway, my point is the majority of hosts and at least a significant minority of the yeerks would not be on earth trying to enslave all humans if they had better choices. So with each controller killed, you're killing one innocent and one "well, they made their choices (sort of)"

And through this all, I want to reinforce that while the Animorphs sometimes make some questionable moral choices, their overall fight is always portrayed as just. And I would argue that it is. Earth is being invaded. The stakes are most life on earth and the freedom of all humans. Worthwhile to crack some eggs for that omelette. Some of the moves Cassie makes towards some reconciliation with the yeerks were incredibly strategically dangerous. Ended up being key to ending things! But risky! My point is, some of the "good" "morally pure" choices, while ultimately portrayed as correct, got people killed!

VERSUS

More common and acceptable portrayals of violence. Bloodless displays of violence . Violence where there is a clear good guy and bad guy. Our society (especially, if that's, yanno, US Americans) does not disapprove of violence. We quite approve of it, actually. Violence is all ages entertainment. We disapprove of realistic or even semi-realistic portrayals of it.

Most fantasy violence, Especially fantasy violence in children's media, isn't ugly, and moreover isn't messy. There isn't friendly fire. Either the bad guys are inhuman monsters or they're ostensibly human but faceless (like stormtroopers). And don't get me wrong, some media that I love operates like this. There are good guys who do violence and they are mostly held up as heroes for it. Not always in universe, some superheroes have complicated or negative public images, ....but definitely they are portrayed as Unambiguously just to the audience. Versus IRL, where even for justified violence, someone is probably going to be mad at you about it.

Is it more damaging to portray an ugly, fucked up violence? Or a sanitized violence? Nearly all irl violence is messy and I'm not just talking about gore when I say that.

[lexi-the-twilight-dragon]

so my partner (who is reading Animorphs at my recommendation/rambling) pointed out something from the first book that somehow escaped my notice:

how many species are in the yeerk pool cavern?

(Image description: “And there were creatures everywhere. Taxxons, Hork-Bajir, and other things I couldn’t even begin to guess at. But mostly, there were humans. A lot of them.” End description)

— Jake, The Invasion

so bae read this, and upon returning the book to me asked “so what species are there, aside from the Hork-Bajir and Taxxons?” Presumably to get a better mental picture

and I realised the only ones I could physically describe were the Gedds (Leerans not being there yet)

then there’s this quote:

(Image description: “Through the window, we could see Yeerk crewmen - Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and two or three other alien species, in simple red or dark brown uniforms. And there were humans, too. My first reaction was hope. Humans!” End description)

— Marco, The Predator

(granted this is on the pool ship, but still)

two or three other alien species, huh? We know from the following book that one was the Gedds, but that leaves one or two other species left unidentified. We know from the same book that the Mak and the Ssstram are infested and a few books later the Nahara.

(Image description: “ Two piers were built out over the lake. One was where the Controllers - human, Hork-Bajir, Taxxon, and other species - disgorged the Yeerks from their heads. Hork-Bajir guards would watch carefully as each Controller knelt at the far end of the pier, and held his head down close to the surface of the lake.” End description)

— Rachel, The Stranger

Rachel mentions “other species” in The Stranger and “some poor creature” in The Underground, so again, implied to be more than just Gedds down there.

I haven’t read the later yeerk pool books in a while so I can’t provide evidence from them.

but to summarise: we get multiple accounts, from at least half of the Animorphs, every time they are in a yeerk pool space, that there are multiple host species other than the Hork-Bajir and Taxxons present, and yet we NEVER GET A DESCRIPTION OF ANY OF THEM

WERE THERE EVER NAHARA ON EARTH? What were they used for? What do they look like? Whats their societal structure? Mak? Ssstram? Hell, Ongachic?

I wanna know! Bae wants to know! WE WANNA KNOW DAMMIT

[featherquillpen]

Animorphs Early Series Fic Recs

Some folks on the podfic Discord server are reading the series for the first time, and they want to dip their toes into fic without spoilers. So I'm helping them out by putting together these fics, which have no spoilers beyond the first ten books.

The Yeerk and the Gedd: A Natural History by Nate the Ape

Some speculative xenobiology about how Yeerks evolved. Very interesting to think about.

Home for Dinner and Weekends by HotPinkCoffee

Pre-canon fic about Marco's mom and how she became infested. It's devastating, and a wonderful POV from one of my favorite minor characters.

The Class by FreakApple

In which Chapman teaches the Animorphs sex ed. Yes, the Animorphs learn about STIs and condoms from a Yeerk, and they don't handle it well. It's very funny.

Break Time by Desdemon

A modern AU, in which Ax learns how to use an iPhone. Light 'n' fluffy.

One Hour by Derin

Devastating fic focused on an original character: a voluntary Controller who's started to have some regrets about his choices.

All the Light We Cannot See by Zelos

Cassie and Jake go on a date, and Jake helps Cassie with some of her insecurities. Cute 'n' fluffy.

Millennimorphs by dragonmorph

An AU in which the events of Animorphs take place later, when the kids are 30. Covers the first two books in the series. Really interesting updates to include surveillance capitalism, etc.

Five of Your Seconds by dragonmorph

A fun awkward Ax/Marco fic set in book 6 while Jake is suffering The Agonies in the shed.

And if I may rec a few of my own fics that fit the theme:

Home(work)

In which Tobias tries to reclaim a sense of normality in his weird hawk life by helping Jake with his homework.

Five Things That Never Happened to Marco (and one that did)

A short AU that asks, "What if Marco's dad got so depressed after his wife's 'death' that he committed suicide?" Big CWs. Bring tissues.

Five Things That Never Happened to Melissa (and one that did)

A short AU that asks, "What if Melissa Chapman had been at the construction site?"

Sancho Panza

An AU that asks, "What if Marco were already a Controller at the time he went to the construction site?"

[swan2swan]

I saw the Council, hovering safe in their hologram. Again they were spectators at a battle. Like human fans at a sporting event. They called out advice, groaned at defeat, cheered at victory. One of the Taxxon Council members became so excited he ate the head of a passing Gedd attendant in a single bite of his red-rimmed mouth.

THAT’S HILARIOUS

[sarifel-corrisafid-ilxhel]

I drew some cute aliens and a quadcopter.

Left to right: Hork-Bajir, Weird Tailless Biped, Andalite, Taxxon, Yeerk in a quadcopter, Gedd, Garatron.

I’m also trying a new style for a couple of things. How does it look?

[thenixkat]

It really makes the most sense if the yeerk ability to infest things was a form of tool use and that gedds are a) domesticated and (b) the yeerk world equivalent of working dogs

Idk, maybe gedds can see as well as they do because they’re domesticated/artificially modified critters. Like, every other lifeform described from their homeworld is blind.

[kooldewd123]

vibrating in my seat remembering that the predator graphic novel comes out soon and we're less than a month away from official artwork of eva

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I don't know if someone discussed this before, but do we know if there were any gedds on earth during/by the end of the invasion? If there were, what do we think happened to them after the war?

Maaan, I wish we had more intel on the gedds. It's possible that Aftran and Edriss are correct in their perception that gedds lack higher-order brain functions and genuinely benefit from symbiosis with yeerks... and it's possible that this is the same flavor of lie as humans telling each other that insects don't feel pain.

I sorta prefer the idea that it really is symbiosis, because then Seerow interrupts a fully-functioning ecosystem by infecting the yeerks with Andalite-Style Imperialism. And that fits with the themes of the series better. Whereas "there's no non-harmful way for yeerks to inhabit hosts" feels less on-brand.

That said... where does that leave the gedds? Maybe as hosts for yeerks who want to remain yeerks, but also want to leave the pool at times? Maybe they return to the homeworld? Maybe in some kind of protected Earth space, like the hork-bajir and taxxons? (If so, and if they don't have their own Toby or Arbron, I shudder to think about the risk of exploitation.) I'm torn, because the question of their sapience and independence is so unanswered.

[grilledcheese-savage]

When I was younger and reading book 6 of Animorphs, I thought the fugue just left voices in Jake’s head. Like, he had a hork bajir in the there, speaking a language he can’t understand. He has a chill af gedd in there. And then temrash. He was the most “dominant” voice in his head. I thought that he just made very bad suggestions to Jake that he just ignored like that bagel meme. So I drew it.

[lorenfangor]

this is in the vein of my post from earlier, but -

the thing about Animorphs and disabiity is that the Yeerks are both heavily coded to be disabled and intensely, fiercely ableist toward themselves and everyone else. both of those things are textual. Aftran talks at length about how it’s unfair that she has to be blind in her natural state and she and the other Yeerks ignore or kill disabled people rather than infest them.

this thread of internalized ableism runs deep through every book, and it shifts the whole focus of the conflict.

the Yeerks are not true parasites. at no point in their life cycle do they need to take a host. perhaps they evolved the infestation traits to avoid predation or to achieve a symbiosis with the Gedd, but they do not have to take hosts. they take hosts because they enjoy the process of taking hosts (I’ve discussed host addiction before) and they feel like they’re only deserving of joy and happiness when they have the capacity to see or taste or speak or whatever. the Empire’s propaganda relies upon the self-hatred of its citizens, and Yeerks who refuse to take hosts are in fact forming an ideological threat to the regime. The YPM genuinely can’t do much except exist as an opposition force since they refuse to take hosts, but that opposition force is imo enough - they’re proving they can live happily without senses, without a host body. They’re proud of who they are as they are, much like disabled people on Earth are. they don’t have eyes, but they don’t feel they need eyes to be happy.

it’s not shocking that Taylor is the most dedicated voluntary Controller we meet, when canonically her villain origin story is being subjected to intense and frighteningly horrific ableism from her former friends and her former peer group - she’s ripe for exploitation, because she buys into the core ideology of the Yeerk Empire, which is “you are not good enough as you are and you must meet specific standards to deserve to live”. she already believes that, which makes her the perfect soldier. in fact, I daresay she probably hates herself enough to suppress her own existence and her own mind - why not just let the Yeerk use your body and be you, since the Yeerk values your physical form more than you do?

I’m on this train of thought because there’s an argument I’ve seen that basically states the whole series is fundamentally ableist because the Yeerks are coded as disabled, but are also villainous, and many of them achieve peace by going nothlit in bodies that aren’t their own (which supposedly sends a message that their bodies as they are aren’t good enough).

I can’t in good conscience do anything but wholeheartedly disagree - yes, the Yeerks are disabled, yes, the Yeerks are villains, but that’s the whole point.

disabled people aren’t possessed of magical get-out-of-atrocities-free cards that render us incapable of being terrible, and what’s more, the Yeerks’ disabled-coded status is a major reason why they’re villains in the first place. their terrible nature is the direct result of self-inflicted internalized bigotry, which is very common in marginalized spaces. on top of that, the solutions of the Yeerks returning to the homeworld and their natural state and psychologically deprogramming from harmful propaganda or bigoted mindsets or the Yeerks addressing lasting issues by voluntarily changing their bodies echoes the conflicting access needs and different perspectives across the disabled community when confronted with internalized ableism.

I don’t think this makes them more justified, more understandable, or more sympathetic. that got bolded because I feel very strongly, lol. in fact I dislike them more now - I’m disabled, and the Yeerks being disabled doesn’t make them want to kill me any less. they’re not my people when they think I should be dead for not having a functioning body or brain. but I think it’s interesting that a series criticized for its messy and problematic handling of disability actually has a lot to say regarding societal assumptions about how disabled people should be, and how harmful those are.

[thaylepo]

The yeerks empire as a whole is like, super obsessed with bio-essentialism when it comes to their hosts. They'd rather engineer a better host than have to put on *gear*. Fine ok if it's for humans, that's just how those funky monkeys roll i guess, but they're all like "we didn't conquer rhe Hork-Bajir for exclusive shock troops just to give them guns and armour wtf"

They seem to love the idea of power in sheer numbers, the Taxxons and later humans appeal to them for that reason. I think given enough time to acclimate they eventually would, but I feel like their council of 13 is made of the same crew that stole a spaceship and sucked up a baby pool, and this many decades later they've become the boomers of the yeerk empire. Love all the shiny new technology, but god help you if you try to change how we do things around here

Random thoughts

The Yeerks were on Earth for a number of years before the Animorphs were a thing. There are what seem to be hundreds or thousands of Taxxons and Hork-Bajir on the planet.

In what, 20-30 years, the Yeerks didn't apply human solutions to alien problems? The Taxxons are squishy, but no one designed and manufactured body armor for them? The Hunger is a recurring issue for them but no one makes a drug for that? We make pills for restless leg syndromeb there's nothing so banal that we won't try to find a pharmaceutical market to exploit. One of the first things Elfangor says about the Hork-Bajir is that they can't see in the dark. We had night vision goggles for awhile before Animorphs was out (Timmy had them in Jurassic Park in '93). They tried surgically adding gills to the Hork-Bajir... but wouldn't making custom Scuba gear have been way easier? Ax is flabbergasted by clothing as a cultural element and fine that makes sense enough, but imagine Cassie introducing Andalites to the miracle of a saddle bag and Ax just having pockets for the sheer hell of it. I mean, we make bulletproof vests for dogs and the Yeerks did none of that. Imagine a Hork-Bajir in full SWAT tactical gear.